Getting a matching tattoo with your mate? Don't stuff it up.

Photo: The Glow

Tattoos are lasting fun, aren’t they? Especially between friends. What’s to regret when there are two of you with the exact same awesome idea? I’ll get to the inky scribblings of Miley, Cara D and Frances Bean, but here’s the one I gave my mate Nicole.

I met Nicole when she was a photographer in the same building as me. I couldn’t help noticing her in the lifts, wearing jodhpurs, a polka-dot shirt, 1950s glasses and a bandana as she was. One day she sauntered over to introduce herself, sat in my chair, swung her feet onto my desk and said, “……”

Actually, I can’t remember what she said because I was so outraged that she would mistake my editor’s cubicle for being the same as everybody else’s – which it was, because print media was in its death throes and nobody gets special treatment anymore, but still, a bit of respect would have been nice.

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Strangely, that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and one that we decided to make P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T. a few years later by sharing an inky reminder to live life to the full every day. That reminder being an asterisk for whatever reason. Or maybe it was a star.

We did the deed at her kitchen table, with a needle, biro, thread and ink – and instructions from the internet. Amazingly, our friendship survived me giving her weirdly rubbery skin a snowflake or something, forever and ever.

If you’re thinking of getting a stylin’ tattoo yourself, take some inspiration from these mates at the bonkers end of the spectrum.

1. Miley Cyrus and Wayne Coyne: Miley’s dead dog

Whether it’s platonic or not, we can’t be the only ones enthralled by the ménage à trois that is Miley, 53-year-old Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne, and Coyne’s girlfriend Katy Weaver. According to Instagram, their love is an explosion of glitter, day-glo clothes, face doodles and cartoon animals. One such cartoon animal is inked on all three of them: a portrait of Miley’s late dog, Floyd.
Why we approve: It’s one person’s sadness, shared.

1. Frances Bean and musician Lyn-Z Way: coat hangers

They’re not just abstract in that artsy way. Anyone who’s seen Mommie Dearest – the film in which Faye Dunaway stars as vintage movie star Joan Crawford – will remember the scene in which Crawford loses the plot at her daughter for hanging her dresses on wire hangers, and whips her with one. Incidentally, Bean is the daughter of Courtney Love.
Why we approve: It’s schmaltz-free wryness.

3. Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn: Double D

When in New York last June, model mates Cara and Jourdan both got intertwined Ds on their hips – signifying their surnames and their bond. They say they are now “DDs for life”, which is lovely, although the end effect says ‘monogrammed towel’.
Why we approve: We only approve of something so naff because it was designed to be provocative (are they? Aren’t they? Should they?) and get the members of the press talking. Mission accomplished.